for the birds and looks upon the puddles. She walks between them slowly until one speaks to her heart and she kneels. She wishes for a vision of Kitty, just one vision, but this morning the chosen puddle shows her something unexpected.
Her mother.
Her mother is wearing a blue dress and standing in a boat. She is holding a wand. She looks very grave. Her black hair is unbound, and she raises her hand slowly, and Annabel knows immediately that she is coming home.
She is sending word, just as she promised.
Annabel stays kneeling on the ground, smiling, long after the vision has vanished. So long that Hafwen comes out and very grumpily asks for more porridge.
“I saw my mother,” Annabel says in the kitchen. She can barely breathe. “She’s coming back.”
Hafwen looks at her suspiciously. “Will you still love me?” she asks.
“Of course I will, Haffie,” says Annabel.
And it makes her think of Kitty again and how much she misses her. The betwixter girl disappeared from the ballroom, and only Hafwen saw her go. Annabel has asked her to tell the story again and again, and each time Hafwen tells it just so: “She stood up. She looked about. She smiled. And then away that skinny went, out through the door.”
“But did she leave no message for me?” Annabel asks again in the kitchen this morning. “Did she say nothing?”
“The skinny left no message,” says Hafwen.
The Finsbury Wizards have not heard from her. Kitty has not brought them their brownie tea. “The wizards tell me I should not stop hoping,” says Annabel.
They search for Kitty—they search for her daily—and when she is found, Annabel will be the first to know. They have sent out their pigeons to all those remaining in the Great & Benevolent Magical Society. Search all the pockets of woods and the shady groves, search all the cemeteries and hedgerows. Send word to the faeries that she is missing and deeply missed.
Yet Annabel remembers her vision in the lacquered jewelry box all those years ago. The little coffin carried by the very old men.
She takes a deep breath, stands up. She’ll be late. It’s time to tend to Miss Henrietta’s wounds.
Miss Henrietta is awake, sitting propped up, pale. Her black hair flows over her shoulders. She smiles today, a small smile, when Annabel enters.
“Tea and medicines, Miss Henrietta,” says Annabel.
Annabel still does not know how her great-aunt survived Mr. Angel and his shadowlings. She grows agitated with any questioning. Her physical wounds are just as deep. Ugly wounds upon her legs and arms and several jagged gashes upon her cheeks. But they are healing. Each day they improve. Annabel uses the medicines and potions that the Finsbury Wizards and the Bloomsbury Witches send her. There is a yellow ointment that smells like the sea and a purple balm that stains her fingers.
Miss Henrietta complains now during the dressing of her wounds, so Annabel thinks she might be mending.
“You hurt me,” she moans, and Annabel soothes her and gives her tea.
She is often confused.
She has asked after the girl they sent down into Under London; after her sister, Estella; and after Vivienne, who turned her back on magic.
But today she says, “Annabel?”
“Yes, Miss Henrietta.”
“You are a good girl. You are very brave,” and then she sleeps again.
It’s Annabel’s turn to smile. She goes about tidying the room and opens the curtains to the day. There is light at last, streaming through the window. She likes to think of Kitty lying somewhere, in such a patch of sunshine, held in the crook of a tree, listening to the strange language of the leaves. There are not many girls like Kitty anymore.
She touches the Morever Wand where it leans against Miss Henrietta’s bed. She looks at her own hand. There is so much magic inside her, she knows, but she does not understand it yet. Should she tell Miss Henrietta of her vision in the puddle today? That her mother is returning?
No. There are floors to be swept and the shop to be opened. Tomorrow, she thinks, tomorrow is time enough for such things.
There is much thanks in my heart for my beautiful mother, who has gone away now. She was always my good friend. She was a great listener and unflinchingly believed in all my harebrained ideas. She was a storyteller, too. She told the story of us, our family, so that we knew it like the verses of the Bible. She was the teacher of patience and persistence, kindness and forgiveness. She taught love. I could never have written a word without her lessons.
Many thanks to Catherine Drayton, again, for her invaluable insight into messy first drafts and for always knowing exactly what to say. Erin Clarke for always knowing just how to make a story work.
Finally, special thanks to my good friends and family. Jane-Anne Boyd for cheering me on. Rachel Paterson and Linda Porter for their kindness. Sonia Blake and Ruth Foxlee for always listening. And Alice, of course, for making life beautiful.